Palmieri Added to Team USA Roster for IIHF World Championships

Ducks winger Kyle Palmieri has been added to the Team USA roster for the 2012 IIHF World Championships.

Palmieri

The 21-year-old joins an American squad that already includes both Bobby Ryan and Cam Fowler from Anaheim. The IIHF World Championships will be held May 4-20, in Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden. Team USA is scheduled to play all of its games in Helsinki at Hartwall Arena, where the Ducks opened the 2011-12 regular season vs. the Buffalo Sabres. Team USA's preliminary round games begin on May 4 and feature France, Canada, Slovakia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Finland and Switzerland as opponents.

Palmieri split this past season between Anaheim and AHL Syracuse. Up with the big club, he had four goals (including his first career two-goal game on March 14 vs. Detroit) and seven points in 18 contents. To date, he has appeared in 28 career NHL contests over the last two seasons and totaled five goals and eight points.

With the Crunch this season, Palmieri was a 2012 AHL All-Star, scoring 33 goals to go along with 25 assists in 51 games played. The Smithtown, NY native helped lead Syracuse into the playoffs, where he posted two points in four games against the St. John's IceCaps before being eliminated with a 4-3 overtime loss on Friday.

Once a member of the U.S. National Development Team from 2007-09, Palmieri also played in the World Junior Championships in 2010 (winning a gold medal) and 2011 (bronze).